Drinking a non-alcoholic beer for the first time is a strange experience. It tastes like beer, smells like beer, makes you crave nicotine like beer, yet there’s something missing. It’s like drinking out of a week-old luke-warm keg that has long lost any sense of its carbonation. You're still drinking, yet that satisfaction isn’t quite there. That, or the looming sense of hangxiety. Either way it counterintuitively makes you want to get on the piss. Not too dissimilar to drinking at U-Bar, really.
Much like anchovies, Heineken 0.0% is an acquired taste. Not due to the potency of flavour, but in that it demonstrates how mature and grown up you are, and that you’re better than everyone else. It’s a demonstration of self-control while simultaneously trying to prove you’re still one of the boys; an alternative to making one leftover Summit last three hours just to make people stop asking why you aren’t drinking. Seriously, just let them live.
With that being said, getting a good taste out of a Heineken 0.0% is like trying to steal meat from a hammerhead shark. Heineken 0.0% is ultimately the watered down alternative to its alcoholic big brother. The bevvy itself is fairly similar to Heineken Silver, although the body of the beer is not thick at all. This creates a mouth feel of what I imagine drinking unfiltered water from the most polluted parts of the Leith would feel like, leaving a hell of a lot more to be desired.
In terms of non-alcoholic beers, however, Heineken 0.0% is actually pretty good. The difference in taste from a real beer isn’t too far off the original (one could debate if that’s a good thing), and definitely worth trying if venturing down the road of non-alcoholic beers this Dry July. Unlike the monstrosity of Export Gold 0.0%, which somehow manages to make a shit beer undrinkable. A 12 box of Heineken 0.0% will sting you $29.89, which somehow manages to be $4 more expensive than a box of Heineken Classic cans. Health is wealth, I guess.
Pairs well with: A post-grad unironically discussing the stock-market at a flat party
X Factor: Unmatched beer pong longevity
Chugability: 1/10. Funnelling one of these should be a crime.
Taste Rating: 6/10. It’s missing something.